Interviews

[sophie morgan]

Anyone have an idea when RO programs typically start offering interviews? How many interviews are offered? Have most people completed their application process?

Cheers
SM

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[radonc]

i had an interview at vandy in oct (the only one out of 20+). few in november, more in december, but there are a lot in january. you should start hearing from programs in nov/dec for the dec/jan interviews.

 

[sophie morgan]

So then most of the interviews are in January and if you have to go to 10+ interviews - so they say- your January is pretty much booked. Is this true?

 

[cancer_doc]

Like radonc, the majority of my interviews were in January. A big advice for everyone out there is to schedule a very flexible rotation (ie: outpatient ophthamology, "research", maybe emergency medicine = shift work) or just use your vacation time in that month.

 

[radonc]

yeah they really began around dec 10 or so and went till the end of jan....

 

[stephew]

is interviewing Jan 9th.

 

[XRTboy]

Most interviews are in January, but some programs start interviewing earlier and UCSF has an interview date in early February. If you do get an interview at a program that offers interview dates in months other than January, then try to schedule the interview in those months. You will find that January gets jammed pack with rad onc interviews and you may be offered interviews on the same date by different programs. Programs have little flexibility in resolving these conflics since most programs only interview on 3 or 4 dates. Also, try to schedule your prelim interviews outside of January, so that you can make it to as many rad onc interviews as possible in January. Interviewing made it impossible for me to take a real class in either January (because of rad onc interviews) or December (because of prelim interviews).

By the way, some programs are not very accomodating to switching if you do have a conflict. They take it as an insult if you ask because you are choosing to interview elsewhere on the date they offered you. Interviewing can be like dating in that programs do not want to feel like your second choice. Not all places are like this, but enough are so that resceduling will be a real pain for some of you. Something I don't endorse, but one of my friends did the following. He was offered interviews on the same date to two programs that were in his top five. He didn't give his name when he called, and just said I have a conflict on this date and can I reschedule. Niether program would offer him an alternate date. Instead of cancelling one, he kept both interview dates. He actually showed up to one that was higher on his rank list, and called or e-mailed the other program very early that morning or late the night before the interview to thell them that he was sick and missed his flight because he was violently ill and asked if could come on another interview date. They said yes.

While rad onc interviews lack flexibility, this is not true for prelim or transitional programs. I asked one program if I could interview over winter break when they officially were not offering interviews, and they let me. I also interviewed at three programs after they officially stopped interviewing. I just called up and said that I was really interested in your program, but I was not able to make it during January or December because of conflicts with interviews in my categorical residency. These three were in February and one of these three was near the middle of February. Prelim interviews are typically just one or two short interviews, so the program director only needs a free half hour to fit you into his schedule.